avril fukubukuro

Fukubukuro: it means 'fortune bag', and you don't know what you'll find inside. In Japan, many shops sell fukubukuro at the beginning of the year. People sometimes get in long queues to grab their hands on their favourite shops' fukubukuro. In some cases, they sell out in few minutes, as in the case of Muji.

On Jan. 5th morning, I repeatedly called Avril headquarters to book my fukubukuro, but lines were busy. When I was starting to lose any hope, a gentle voice answered.

When I first saw the box, I couldn't believe my eyes, it was soooo BIG!

I think there are more than 5 kilograms of yarn inside. Some gorgeous silk mohair, about 500 grams of tweedy wool, two skeins of silk-cotton, a HUGE cone of silk, and several other cones... No top selling Avril yarn, but it was worth the 5000 yen I spent for all this stuff!

Secret Pal 13

I was back in turin on the 13th, late night, and Mrs Postman rang on 14th morning... and this is what I found: a box from my SP13!!!

(what a box! Finnish Posts boxes are cuter than Italian ones... can you see it? it's marimekko!)

100 gr of sock yarn in great purples and greens, chunky wool in one of my favorite shades of green and little shoe shaped stitchmarker kit.

Thank you very much! I was a little bit sad of being home, with work and deadlines, but this package brightened my day, the whole week and the whole month!

明けましておめでとうございます！

I'm Kyushu right now, and I'm typing with my legs warmed in a kotatsu table.
It's my husband's laptop and I don't know how to manage raw files with a pc, so I'll upload pictures when I'll be back home.
However, I was in kyoto before Christmas and visited Avril sanjo shop (it was just great!), and also bought some strange silk skeins in Toji market, which is held every 21st of the month.

I finished knitting the Lady February for my mother, which ended up with too large sleeves... and I almost finished also a triangular Shetland shawl. I received some gorgeous mohair yarn in moss green and some of the softest alpaca I've ever touched from miss Naganasu.

Anyway, happy new year to everybody!